Smyrna times., 1887-08-10
For the Smyrna Times.
The Hotohkiss Guns.

The days of great guns are on the
waue. 1t has taken but short while
to prove how useless mOnstrOus 100
ton guns are for effective SER
vice. Don QuixOte was never more
helplessly unhOrsed, than is one of these
deep thrOated fellows at sea subject to
heaving waves and u rolling ship.
After being fired a few times the re-
coil is so deadly that more harm occurs
to the ship that harbOrs them than to
the target in the harbOr. 1t takes up
ward of four millions of dollars to build
a decent ship around a couple of these
Krupp screechers. Steel, iron and
wood must be interviewer and inter-
laced in all conceivable shapes and
sizes to form the bed whereOn they are
to rest. The Italian government has
built heavy armored ships armed with
these great guns by the score. So has
England and France built miles of
them. Turkey invested millions of
borrowed dollars in steel coated heavy
gun ship to rot idly in the narrows of
the Dardanelles. Russia too, ordered
them to be heavier than all others to
match her own pOnderOus inertness.
No ship carrying battery of 100 ton
guns has ever yet crossed the Atlantic,
or ever will. Their vast strength
seems never to he called on because of
its vastness. When they move it re-
sembles revolution of the earth, their
shadow makes night where but sec
ond before was day, and the deep roar
of their guns in salute announces thun-
der without the accompanying lightning.
The cost of a single charge to produce
this thunder would build a 500 house.
In the meanwhile the press of the Uni
ted States have been bowling to absorb
the treasury surplus in emulating Eu-
ropean armOred ships twice over.
" Our Navy, Our Navy" has had the
changes rung upon it so often that now
IL has become tiresOme, and is even not
good to talk about upon the hustings
for political effect They make tOrpe-
does nov so sensitive to the least touch
when submerged in the water that
they will blow hole in the bottom OF
a 81 900, 900 iron clad hundred times
larger than the torpedo and sink her
sight unseen. They are making Mag
azine guns Of the kind that fires from
the shoulder, 10, 10 and 80 Founders
with such rapidity and deadly eff.
feet as to make the working of guns
and ship impossible. Some call them
machine guns and are fixed on frame
dozen or more barrels side by side
looking not unlike the mouth organ g
darkey buys in a store for fifty cents
after having given his other four dol
lars and half for a revolver.
All! these HOtchkiss and Norden
feldt magazine guns at their stations il
the tops of swift cruisers and fired will
the deliberation and certainty that tn,
sportsman does his breech-lOader a
the slow moving wOodcock, are destin
ed in connection with the torpedo t,
cause II complete change to be made il
I the rig ships going to sea to fight eacl
other in. Nor is it by any means ofslov
growth, as can be seen of the nation
already adopting this new and effeC
tive offensive means. Ofthe Hotchkis
! shoulder firing magazine gun. Franc
has in her service 1888; England, 532
. Russia, 3l2; United States, 1876; China
. 1873; Holland, 131; Italy, 1913; Austrii
. 1O8; Germany, $40, Greece, 48; Al
y gentine Republic, 16; Brazil, u; Chill
4 40; Denmark, 80; Norway, IL; mall
: ing total of 5 1887 guns that from tn
, extreme mobility with which they ca
be handled will place hOrs de combat an
. heavy gunned ship in existence. S.